California law defines community property as any asset acquired or income earned by a married person while living with a spouse. Separate property is defined as anything acquired by a spouse before the marriage, during the marriage by gift, devise, or bequest, and after the parties separate. The law requires that the community estate be divided equally if there is no written agreement requiring a particular division of property. This means that from the total fair market value of the community assets, the joint obligations of the parties are subtracted, yielding the net community estate. Unless agreed otherwise, each spouse must receive half of the net community estate.

Dividing Community Property:The law does not require an "in kind" division of community property, which would mean you would have to divide each physical object. All that the law requires is that the net value of the assets received by each spouse must be equal. Thus, it is not uncommon for one spouse to be awa rded the family residence, with the other spouse receiving the family business and investment real estate, as long as each spouse gets assets that are equivalent in value. Since the total net value of the assets being received by each spouse is equal, such a division is proper.

Ordinarily, it is not difficult to determine whether a particular asset is community or separate property. However, certain types of assets can pose unique problems in this regard, including a business that one spouse owned before marriage and both spouses worked on during the marriage, or property that belonged to one spouse before marriage but was shared during the relationship.

Pension and Employment Benefits:When a married person accumulates an interest in a pension, retirement, profit sharing, or other employee benefit plan during the marriage, the part that was accumulated during the marriage it is community property and subject to division in the dissolution.

How is the pension plan divided?By Reservation of Jurisdiction. This is the most common way in which pension plans are handled. Under reservation of jurisdiction, the court orders that when the employed spouse retires the other spouse will receive a percentage of each pension check. This percentage is calculated by dividing the years when the spouses lived together as husband and wife by the total number of years that the employed spouse has been participating in the Pension Plan. The result of that division is the community property percentage of the Pension Plan. For example, if the husband had 20 years of contributions into a Pension Plan, with 10 of those years coinciding with the years he lived with his wife, the community property share of his Pension Plan would be 50% (10 divided by 20). Thus, the wife would be entitled to 25% of the husband's pension checks (half of 50%). Under a reservation of jurisdiction, the non-employee spouse can elect to receive his or her share of the employee spouse's pension benefits at the earliest time that the employed spouse could retire. This means that if the employed spouse chooses not to retire at the earliest opportunity, that spouse will have to pay the other spouse what the non-employee spouse would have received if the employed spouse had retired.

Family Residence:Where minor children are involved, it is common for the primary custodial parent to be allowed to live in the residence with the children for a specified period of time after the divorce is finalized. During that period of time, the spouse who lives in the home is usually required to make all mortgage, property tax, and homeowner insurance payments when due, although the other spouse may be required to make those payments if there's a significant disparity in the spouses' income and resources. The house must be sold when there are no children living at the property, the youngest child attains the age of majority, or as otherwise agreed by the parties or specified by the court.

Educational Degrees and Professional LicensesIn California, where a spouse has earned a college degree or a professional license during the marriage, the community estate is entitled to be reimbursed for the costs of acquiring the degree or license. These costs are normally limited to such things as tuition, fees, and books. Unlike in other states, the law in California does not give the other spouse any right to a percentage of the enhanced earning ability of the spouse who acquired the degree or license. ​